October 30, 2012

Today’s feature is a special edition of CommanderCast where Andy is flying solo, backed only by an embarassing collection of mistakes made while recording, an extended track of ‘ums’ taken from a prior recording and the mailbag. Oh, and he gets some backup from Ryan of SainioCast (the self-titled podcast) who drops some jewels regarding the next step in the evolution of Horde Magic, Quest Magic. Also, as a heads up, this isn’t really the same as the prior DerpmanderCast incursion, because I don’t have three of my team’s most elite podcasters holding things down, so I apologize if you were expecting more of that glorious garbage. And if you hated the first DerpmanderCast, well… this is likely more up your alley.

Also, can’t forget the announcements of the winners of Gifts Given 2012’s Super Secret Mystery Prizes! I saved that bit for last so you have to dredge through the rest of the junk to get to it. Deal with it son.

…wait, I timestamped even THIS crap below! Well, maybe you can skip around to find what you want then. How beautiful is freedom!

Show notes and pertinent links below. Enjoy.

SHOW NOTES

INTRODUCTION

00:00 to 03:43:Introductions: WHO THIS IZ

ACTUAL ‘SEGMENTS’

04:08 to 10:16:Outtakes

10:43 to 17:16:The SainioCast presents: Quest Magic: My man Ryan runs a solo podcast and on this episode he’s tackling the newest spin on Horde, Quest Magic. Listen in for the deets, and be sure to scope his podcast yourself!

21:24 to 26:09:Mailbag: Listener Nam asked me, “What other games do you like to play?” I’ve been asked this a few times so I figure maybe this will save somebody the effort of an email if they want to ask me in the future.

26:36 to 31:23:Outtakes

31:40 to 34:20:Mailbag: Alex asks how I feel about building a Cube-esque stack of quality cards to build decks with on the fly.

48:29 to 51:09:Mailbag: In response to some of our discussion on Respawn Magic, Andrew has refined the format down to his favourite setup to win: giving players +2 points for a kill, +1 for an ‘Assist’ and -1 for a death. I briefly discuss the merits of this setup.

“I’ve been playing respawn EDH with my group for a couple months now, so figured I’d give some feedback. We’ve been playing where you get 2 points for a kill, 1 for an assist, and -1 for a death and have been pretty happy with it so far.We went with the -1 penalty for dying since our players who play more controlling/grindy decks didn’t like the thought of deaths being unpenalized, partially because they were worried about musket decks alpha striking someone down then conceding and respawning once they ran out of cards, and partially because they wanted to be rewarded in points for their resilience. We haven’t had too many issues with it promoting defensive play, since kills are still worth more than the penalty for dying. Our games have generally been much faster paced and more aggressive than most Commander games.

We implemented the assist point since we were having problems with things like players going to attack a dying player, doing the math and realizing that the attack would leave them at 2, and choosing not to attack. We put a pretty high bar on what counts as an assist, so randomly hitting someone for 8 the turn before they die doesn’t just get you a point. Generally assists tend to be awarded for things like nearly killing someone so that anyone can finish them off, using something like Chandra Nalaar’s ultimate to render someone completely defenseless, or countering someone’s spell that will save them when another player has lethal on the stack/in the red zone against them.”

51:29 to 55:00:Outtakes

55:22 to 57:49:Mailbag: Well, somebody wanted to hear what I think about this but to be honest there’s not much left to say. You want to buy it or you don’t.

58:08 to 1:04:39:Outtakes

1:04:59 to 1:09:10:Mailbag: Listener Zane goes against his better judgement and asks me for some advice on an awkward social situation all Commander players will likely run into some day.

1:09:30 to 1:15:15:Outtakes

1:15:36 to 1:23:27:Gifts Given 2012 Raffle Prize Winners: I announce the winners of the raffle in this segment. Congratulations to the winners!